


make of me a soldier

by honeypuffed



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, no one ever stays dead in the marvel universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 03:32:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1495009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeypuffed/pseuds/honeypuffed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Winter Soldier succeeds in killing Captain America, and Bucky is not okay with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	make of me a soldier

**Author's Note:**

> For [this](http://stevebucky-fest.dreamwidth.org/307.html?thread=719411#cmt719411) sad-ass prompt that I for some reason decided to fill.

He realises something is wrong when Captain America’s body goes limp underneath him, but he can’t figure out exactly what it is. His mission is complete, he should feel satisfied, accomplished, but instead he just feels a vague sense of foreboding. He sits back, taking his hand off Captain America’s neck, and stares at the blood that has spread across his stomach from the shot before. He feels his stomach turn as he gets up, eyeing the chip resting in Captain America’s slack fist. Before he can think about what he’s doing, he snatches the chip up and sets it in place. In seconds, the Helicarrier is under fire, collapsing about him, and he takes one last look at Captain America before he dives to safety. Something is definitely wrong.

 

He’s supposed to report back to Hydra, after that, but instead he goes off the grid. There’s a guy he finds in Atlanta who can decommission the tech in his arm (and who doesn’t ask questions), and a doctor in St. Louis who puts him through some seriously new and seriously illegal medical testing to try and recover his memory. The more he learns, the more he’s sure something’s faulty with the procedure, because there’s no way that Captain America—who he’s slowly coming to think of as _Steve_ —could be his friend, his closest friend, because that would mean that, that—

“Sorry,” he blurts out, letting go of the doctor’s neck, blinking back into the present. “Shit, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he continues, the most he’s said in weeks.

She’s breathing heavily, but she doesn’t seem scared. “It’s fine, I knew what I was getting into.”

“I don’t think it’s working,” he says. “The, these things I’m remembering can’t be right.”

“Oh,” she smiles, “I think it’s working.”

He puts a hand up to his face and realises there are tears streaked down his cheeks. He doesn’t go back, after that.

 

He’s not sure what drags him to Brooklyn, or what force drags his feet through the streets like he knows them back to front. He finds himself frowning at all the shops he passes. _That’s not supposed to be there_.

He looks up and he’s standing at the door to a dingy apartment, and the ache in his heart is too strong so he turns and runs and runs and runs, and then there’s Coney Island and forcing Steve to ride the Cyclone because Bucky’s found them both dates again and he’s sure this one will work out and _he killed his best friend_.

 

Thinking of himself as James Buchanan Barnes again—as _Bucky_ again—doesn’t come quickly. He hardly thinks that’s a name he’s allowed to use anymore. The Winter Soldier suits him better; it’s detached and cold and deserving of a ruthless assassin, someone who would shoot, stab, beat and choke a friend to death. Someone who would kill the one person who, in spite of everything, always had his back.

He thinks of when they were kids, when Steve’s mum got sick and he’d been there, when she’d died and he’d been there, when Steve got himself into every stupid fight and he’d been there, and when Steve had been too ill to even feed himself right and he’d been there. Bucky was _that_ guy, that one who, in spite of everything, always had Steve’s back. He would never deserve that name again.

 

“I can help you go back,” she says, but he doesn’t even really know who she is.

He’s trying not to look at her chest, because it’s all but exploding out of her outfit, but if he doesn’t look at that, then it’s her curved hips, her long smooth legs, and he’s _sure_ she could be wearing more clothing. Even if she claims to be a witch, there’s no excuse for such exposure, surely. Where’s the mystery?

He frowns then, recognising something distinctly old-fashioned in that thought, but tries to ignore it. “How?” he asks, finally looking back up at her face, and the smirk on her lips tells him he’s been caught out.

“Magic, of course.” Her lips twist into a bigger smile, and he reads the unspoken catch written on them.

There’s no time to think about it before he’s hurtled off out of the timestream.

 

The trip is instantaneous and yet at the same time, infinite. When Bucky lands in the past, it feels like he only just left the present, but also that years have passed, years in which he’s had a lot of time to set his mind.

He is Bucky now, he was the Winter Soldier then, and he was Bucky before that.

He’ll have Steve’s back, again.

He takes a moment to orient himself, and realises he’s on the Helicarrier, mere minutes before the incident. He can see himself, the one in the past, aiming at Steve as he climbs for the console, bullet slamming into the back of Steve’s thigh.

He hasn’t had time to think this out. All those years in limbo outside the timestream, all those years to think over what he would do if the witch really was sending him back in time to this moment, and it hasn’t been enough. If he kills himself, would he die now too? Would that affect his own timeline, or is his existence in the past enough to split the timeline into two: one in which The Winter Soldier kills Captain America, and one in which Bucky Barnes saves Steve Rogers?

Bucky leaps at the Winter Soldier and catches him off guard, knocking him off balance and sending him hurtling off the Helicarrier. Bucky catches himself before he goes toppling over the side too, and sits on the glass, watching as Steve inserts the chip that saves the world. Even battered and bruised and bleeding, Steve still plays the hero.

Bucky remembers for a moment that even under his programming, he put that chip in too, and smiles a little. They’re one for one, there.

Steve turns around and looks down, face rapidly cycling through a number of expressions before he settles on something between shock and confusion.

Bucky guesses wearing a hoodie and jeans to this history-changing affair doesn’t make for a very convincing Winter Soldier replacement.

“Bucky?” Steve says, so quietly that Bucky almost doesn’t catch it. He climbs down, trying to avoid his left leg, as the missiles begin to rattle the Helicarrier.

“Hey Steve,” Bucky says when Steve gets close, but doesn’t stand up.

Steve crumples to the ground in front of him, searching for words and not really finding them. “I don’t un—what—” Steve’s breathing is shallow and erratic and for the first time in decades, Bucky worries about his asthma and his heart.

“I’m not,” Bucky starts, but that’s wrong. “I killed you.” He scrunches up his face because that’s wrong too, but it’s out there now and he can’t help it. He’d thought about this too, in limbo, about what he would say, but he can’t remember now. Somehow all that time seems irrelevant next to this moment. “I killed you, today, so I came back to fix it. I’m sorry.”

Steve doesn’t understand entirely, but that’s fine. They’ve got time, now. As long as they get off this Helicarrier before it completely implodes.

“We need to get off this thing,” Bucky tells him, and smiles a little.

Steve launches at Bucky and wraps his arms tight around him. “Bucky,” he says.

“It’s me, pal.” Bucky buries his face in Steve’s neck and snakes his arms around his middle. Suddenly he starts to laugh.

Steve pulls back, frowning, not entirely letting go. “What is it?”

“Never really had much chance to get used to you being so big,” Bucky says. “Come on, we gotta get off this thing before we both die. Again.”

Steve stands up, suddenly Captain America again, and tucks Bucky under one arm and jumps out of the Helicarrier.

Bucky only has a moment to think _Oh great I’m going to die anyway_ , before he blacks out.

 

He wakes up on the side of the Potomac, his head cradled in Steve’s lap. The wreck of the Helicarrier is an awful mess in the river, but a beautiful sight all the same.

“You have to go back, don’t you,” Steve says, and Bucky looks up at him. Steve is looking away somewhere distant, so Bucky shifts his gaze back to the wreck.

“Yeah I think so.”

Steve’s hand comes up and brushes through Bucky’s hair, stroking softly. “Okay.”

“Atlanta and St. Louis are good starting points,” Bucky says.

Steve frowns down at him and Bucky feels weird about the position now, so he sits up, looking Steve in the eye properly.

“I’ll figure it out eventually, but a push won’t hurt. And um,” Bucky pauses and takes a breath. “Coney Island. Definitely Coney Island.”

Bucky very quickly finds himself wrapped up in Steve’s arms again, and then he’s gone, hurtling back through time and space. No eternal limbo this time, just a brief feeling of displacement, and then he’s sitting on a couch in an apartment in Brooklyn, and he’s never been here before but at the same time he knows this is where he lives.

“How can anyone possibly deal with that much hair?”

Bucky looks over and Steve is on the couch next to him, watching the TV very intently.

“How does computer animation work,” Steve continues, in awe.

Bucky’s phone pings, and there’s a text from an unknown number that just says: _You owe me -Wanda xo_. He’s not exactly sure who Wanda is, but he has a pretty good idea.

Bucky smiles at Steve, movie forgotten. He thinks about saying _I’m sorry_ again but that’s not right, thinks about saying _I love you_ but that doesn’t really cover it either, so instead he just sits in silence, staring.

And when Steve looks at him and smiles back, Bucky thinks maybe everything will be okay.


End file.
